David Chelsea's Blog, page 16

Modern Love Podcast: Groomzilla!

Yesterday, another of my old Modern Love column illustrations for the New York Times appeared with a podcast reading of the essay it originally illustrated. On this week’s podcast, the actor John Cho reads “Men Don’t Care About Weddings? Groomzilla Is Hurt,” about a groom who, in the process of planning his wedding, becomes a person he doesn’t recognize.

David Chelsea is watching: The Nice Guys

starring Ryan Gosling

John Cho

The essay by Craig Bridger, which originally appeared in 2006, riffs on the then-popular reality TV series Bridezillas– the name of course derived from the movie monster lizard Godzilla. It was a no-brainer to draw Godzilla in a tux. With hindsight, possibly I should have colored the scaly plates (or whatever they are) on his back green to match the rest of him.

I have a history with the character. Back in 1999, Seattle Weekly had me draw a Godzilla-ish Bill Gates for their cover (DID Microsoft go down in 1999? I don’t remember).

More recently, a Facebookfriend named Jerome T. Guerrero commissioned me to create a painting based on a dream he had as a child. In the dream, Jerome was Godzilla holding a photograph. He knew it was him/Godzilla because he could see the hands/paws holding the photograph. He was scraping away at the photograph and as he was scraping, it was revealing his own face. The commission was the image of Godzilla scrapping or melting away revealing child Jerome underneath.

Here is my first rough of the idea:

And here is the finished painting, which I think turned out particularly well:

It now occurs to me that I have buried the lede, which should be: I DO PRIVATE COMMISSIONS!

Secret Stash Plus!

The first Secret Stash posting of the New Year on Patreon is ten more illustrations from my 1970s tenure at Portland’s underground paper, the Scribe. The subjects include such fads of the time as Renaissance Faires and Folk Masses:

David Chelsea is reading: The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture

by Glen Weldon

I was definitely the right guy to illustrate the above piece. As a cradle Catholic child of the 60s, I had eaten my share of homemade bread dunked in red wine in lieu of the host, and logged hours mumbling the words to such liturgical chestnuts as YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND and BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS at ultra-hip folk masses. Favorite sardonic touch: nail holes in the priest’s hands.

Membership has its privileges; all Secret Stash material is viewable by Patreon sponsors at the $4.99 level and above.

Also on Patreon this week, the latest two-page installment of WIPER WOMAN, my most recent 24 Hour Comic. Since Wiper Woman’s superpower is the somewhat cerebral ability to cloud men’s minds to make them remember events the way she tells them to, this story has been short on action, but this week- FIGHT SCENE!:

Also on Patreon, I have been keeping up a regular quota of End Strips and Call Slips. This recent one was intended to reassure my friends apprehensive at the prospect of a Trump Presidency that this too shall pass:

When I posted a link to the strip on Facebook, the response was mostly positive, but one dissenter commented that showing the President-Elect murdered by his wife was in “bad taste”. By way of reassurance, I sent an open message to Melania Trump: “DON’T stab your husband in the back!”

The cadence of this reminded me of the old Noel Coward song “Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs. Worthington”, and I quickly drew this follow-up strip:

Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!

RIP, Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia (with Paul Simon), illustration for the New York Observer, 2006

Carrie Fisher came along a bit too late to be the focus of my adolescent fantasies. By the time the first STAR WARS was released in 1977, I had already seen Sissy Spacek nude onscreen in PRIME CUT and CARRIE, as well as Cybill Sheperd in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, FAYE DUNAWAY in CHINATOWN and NETWORK, Carol Kane in THE LAST DETAIL, Shelley Duvall in THIEVES LIKE US, and Valerie Perrine in LENNY, not to mention any number of real-life and up close actresses in the Storefront Theater, both onstage and in the dressing room, so her chaste appearance as Princess Leia didn’t do much for me. Her harem girl outfit in RETURN OF THE JEDI might have made more of an impression, but that didn’t come out until 1983, by which time I was 24, and well past fantasizing about actresses.

David Chelsea is watching: 6 SOULS

starring Julianne Moore

2016 may have been a bumper year for celebrity deaths, but most of them were decades past their best work- I don’t know anyone who listened to the recent Bowie CD, or who was breathlessly awaiting the next Zsa Zsa Gabor movie. Even Dan Hicks, my personal favorite, had been recording excellent albums lately, but they were mostly remakes of old material. Carrie was different, and one might even say she went out at the top of her game. In recent years she had written a couple of well-received memoirs recounting her years of drug abuse, mental illness and bad romantic history, which she then turned into a one-woman show, and had also distinguished herself as a character actress on 30 ROCK and CATASTROPHE. I happened to be reading her latest book, THE PRINCESS DIARIST, (which incorporates the cringeworthy adolescent diary she wrote during the filming of the first STAR WARS film, while she was having an affair with the very married Harrison Ford), when I got the new of her death at 60 from a heart attack. One can easily imagine her turning the STAR WARS diary into another one-woman show, or doing the same, Spaulding Gray-like, with her recent heart attack. Alas, it was not to be.

Kind Of Just In Time For Christmas: American Bystander #3!

Cover of AMERICAN BYSTANDER #3

Happy Holidays! My Christmas Eve was cheered by the long-awaited arrival of the third issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER (long-awaited by me, that is- I understand Kickstarter contributors got their copies in early November).

David Chelsea is listening to: A Pentatonix Christmas

This issue has a cover by Drew Friedman, and features contributions from a stellar lineup of writers and artists, among them Howard Cruse, Gahan Wilson, Ron Barrett, M. K. Brown, and Rick Geary. It also features contributions from me wearing both my illustrator and cartoonist hats.

The comic is a four-page story THE KIDS MOVIE, which previously appeared in print as a backup story in the SNOW ANGEL one-shot comic. Even though this story is a few years old, it is nonetheless timely- the two little girls who are its central characters must move out of their house at the end of next month:

My illustration in the issue is for a piece by former David Letterman Show head writer Merrill Markoe about defusing political differences with your families during the holidays. It was drawn in those innocent days when most of us assumed it would be the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN crowd who would be feeling the post-election pain. The classic Norman Rockwell image it riffs on is more of a Thanksgiving scene, but it still applies to Christmas:

Rough thumbnail
Pencil preliminary sketch
Line drawing on coquille board
Watercolor layer
Final illustration

Rockwell riffs are a perennial for me; here is my cover for The Manhattan Spirit, circa 1995:

Want to see what all the fuss is about? Click the link to order your own copy of AMERICAN BYSTANDER #3!

Just In Time For Christmas- Frog Chase With Music!

Just in time for Christmas, my daughter Rebecca’s very first animation Frog Chase , re-released with a new original musical score by her brother Ben! Originally created in 2012- hard to imagine how far she’s come since then!

David Chelsea Is Watching:Camp

starring Anna Kendrick

Watch Frog Chase on YouTube

View more of Rebecca’s animation on her website!

SLEEPLESS Stories: I LIKE TO RIFF

This is the last of my irregular series of posts about stories in my 24 hour comic collection SLEEPLESS, published this spring by Dark Horse. I LIKE TO RIFF is something of a victory lap, both for myself and for any reader who has made through all eleven of my previous 24 hour comics. I constructed the story by putting the names of the eleven previous comics in a sack, and drawing one out at random every two hours. See if you can spot all of them (the first six are in my previous volume, EVERYBODY GETS IT WRONG!).

David Chelsea is watching: Krampus

directed by Michael Dougherty

You may notice that Snow Angel looks considerably taller here than she did in her own comic drawn a few years earlier; I had based her appearance on my daughter Rebecca, and subconsciously drew Snow Angel to age with her. When I draw the character now, I take care to keep her looking around nine years old.

This story also includes a return appearance by the family pet Bingo The Cat, who was featured in his own 24 Hour Comic. Regular readers of this blog will remember my obituary post about Bingo last January:

SLEEPLESS AND OTHER STORIES: DAVID CHELSEA’S 24-HOUR COMICS, VOL.2

Publisher: Dark Horse

Publication Date: March 16, 2016

Format: b&w, 168 pages; HC, 6” x 9”

Price: $19.99

Age range: 16

ISBN-10: 1-61655-884-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-61655-884-0

It’s getting awfully close to Christmas, but there’s still time to order the book from Amazon here!:

SLEEPLESS Stories: THE GIRL WITH THE KEYHOLE EYES

Here is another in my irregular series of posts about stories in my 24 hour comic collection SLEEPLESS, published this spring by Dark Horse. THE GIRL WITH THE KEYHOLE EYES was drawn in 2009 and published as a limited-edition mini comic to raise money for the medical expenses of underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson. The jacket flap copy (which riffs on the then-popular Facebook feature 25 Random Things About Me), should tell you all you need to know about the story:

David Chelsea is reading: Fighting American

by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

24 Random Things About My 24 Hour Comic.

1. The book you have in your hands is an exclusive premium for those who have contributed to the S.Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust.

2. The Trust was set up to help pay the medical expenses of pioneer underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson. In November 2008, Wilson was found face down and unconscious between parked cars after attending the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. He spent a week in intensive care and faces a long recovery.

3. I have never met S.Clay Wilson. I’m just a fan.

4. Actually, Crumb is my favorite Zap guy, but I think Wilson drew the best women.

5. This story was really drawn in 24 hours, between the hours of 10am Saturday April 11th and 10 am Sunday April 12th 2009 at Cosmic Monkey Comics in Portland, Oregon.

6. Six other artists joined me in soliciting donations for the Wilson Trust at the Cosmic Monkey event: Kevin Cross, Joshua Kemble, Mike Getsiv, Tony Morgan, Josh Fitz and Ben Sarnoff.

7. The idea is that one attempts to draw one page of comics an hour for 24 continuous hours. Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud devised it as an exercise for a cartoonist friend who was a chronically slow worker, always missing deadlines.

8. I drew my first 24 Hour Comic in 2004. Since then I have drawn two a year.

9. This one is the eleventh. I believe this to be a World Record.

10. Whenever I am planning to draw a 24 Hour Comic I go off caffeine for a week, and I take my first sip of coffee at the close of hour eight.

11. After that, I break out the chocolate-covered espresso beans.

12. Ken O’Connell of Copic marker provided art materials and manga-ruled paper for the event. Apart from blue pencils, my story was drawn using only their products. Thanks, Ken.

13. This story is a mixture of verifiable fact, hazy memory and baldfaced lies.

14. I did really once know a girl with keyhole eyes.

15. Keyhole eyes is an actual condition, known medically as colobama. Wikipedia says: “Coloboma is a hole in one of the structures of the eye, such as the lens, eyelid, iris, retina, choroid or optic disc. The hole is present from birth and can be caused when a gap called the choroid fissure between two structures in the eye, which is present early in development in the uterus, fails to close up completely before a child is born. The classical description in medical literature is of a key-hole shaped defect. A coloboma can occur in one or both eyes”.

16. Not everything you read on Wikipedia is necessarily true.

17. I did once hear a street preacher expound on the polar bear, but I can’t say when or where it was, let alone whether my girlfriend was with me.

18. The year was not 1980.

19. The part about her becoming a postal worker is true, but the only person she killed was herself.

20. That part about Rush Limbaugh? Totally true.

21. Some things l ate while working on the 24 Hour Comic: turkey sandwich, apple, pizza, grapes, trail mix, chocolate-covered espresso beans.

22. Some things I listened to while working on the 24 Hour Comic: The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury, Volume 2 Disc One, part of the audiobook “The Widows of Eastwick” by John Updike, lectures by Alan Watts, inane chatter from my fellow artists about the merits of the Watchmen movie and inconsistencies in the DC Universe.

23. I threw in so many wordless panels near the end because I was running out of material and also because an artist named Jacob Mercy was engaging in this kind of asinine rivalry thing where he kept boasting about what page he was on and how he was going to finish ahead of me. Wordless panels are really quick to draw, especially when there’s nothing in them but a wheel on a metal track. I caught up to Mercy pretty darn fast.

24. In the end, Jacob Mercy finished twenty minutes ahead of me.

Panels from the 24 Hour Comic and Dark Horse Presents versions of THE GIRL WITH THE KEYHOLE EYES

I later redrew this story in color for DARK HORSE PRESENTS. To give you some idea of my usual pace of working, this 24 Hour Comic took, obviously, 24 Hours. The DARK HORSE PRESENTS version took me eight months.

SLEEPLESS AND OTHER STORIES: DAVID CHELSEA’S 24-HOUR COMICS, VOL.2

Publisher: Dark Horse

Publication Date: March 16, 2016

Format: b&w, 168 pages; HC, 6” x 9”

Price: $19.99

Age range: 16

ISBN-10: 1-61655-884-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-61655-884-0

It’s getting awfully close to Christmas, but there’s still time to order the book from Amazon here!:

SLEEPLESS Stories: NOW OPEN THE BOX

Here is another in my irregular series of posts about stories in my 24 hour comic collection SLEEPLESS, published this spring by Dark Horse. I drew “Now Open The Box”, my tenth 24 Hour Comic, at the Cosmic Monkey Drawpocalypse event on April 5-6 2008. I loosely based it on that week’s Modern Love column, which I was then illustrating for the Style Section of the New York Times. That piece, by Lori Jakiela, was about a couple who buy a sex chair online, but find themselves too embarrassed to test it out after their seven year old son appropriates it as a battleground for his plastic army men.

David Chelsea is reading: Fighting American

by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Illustration for Modern Love column by Lori Jakiela

That’s fine for a family newspaper, but I figure such coyness would never be tolerated in comics, so my couple definitely get the chair. I drew this story on isometric graph paper, which gives the panels a look like old-school video games or architectural drawings. The view approximates that of a spectator in a high balcony watching a stage production through opera glasses:

By the way, I borrowed the title “Now Open The Box” from a very strange 1930s children’s book by Dorothy Kunhardt, about “the teeniest weeniest teeny teeny teeny weeny weeny weeny little dog in all the world,” named Peewee.

Cover to NOW OPEN THE BOX by Dorothy Kunhardt

SLEEPLESS AND OTHER STORIES: DAVID CHELSEA’S 24-HOUR COMICS, VOL.2

Publisher: Dark Horse

Publication Date: March 16, 2016

Format: b&w, 168 pages; HC, 6” x 9”

Price: $19.99

Age range: 16

ISBN-10: 1-61655-884-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-61655-884-0

It’s getting awfully close to Christmas, but there’s still time to order the book from Amazon here!:

The Modern Love Podcast: Haydn Gwynne Reads ‘Two Decembers: Loss and Redemption’

The Modern Love Podcast resurrects another one of my brilliant illustrations for the long-running New York Times column, and also gives you something to listen to. In this week’s podcast, the actress Haydn Gwynne reads “Two Decembers: Loss and Redemption,” about a suicide that sets the course of a young woman’s life.

David Chelsea is listening to: Songs for Christmas

by Sufjan Stevens

You can listen to her reading here, or find the episode on iTunes and Google Play Music.

The author, Anne Marie Feld, is a writer. Her essay was adapted from the anthology “Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families.”

Ms. Gwynne is the star of “The Windsors,” a comedic soap opera on Channel 4. She has also appeared on BBC’s “Sherlock.”

Haydn Gwynne

End Strips And Call Slips

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to post about for some time, and I have finally found a break in my hectic schedule (which has lately consisted mostly of napping and coughing up phlegm- I’m coming off a bad cold).

David Chelsea is reading:Laughter in the Dark

by Vladimir Nabokov

My main Patreon page project has of course been ARE YOU BEING WATCHED? the serialized webcomic, but I have been interspersing it with other material like fan art, 1970s illustrations drawn for the Portland Scribe, archived comics, and reference photos. Lately, I’ve been posting a new project, a series of “end strips”:

The idea came to me when I posted a series of strips I drew a decade ago on Notepad, an application for the Palm Pilot. I noticed that the vertical format of those strips showed up very well on modern phones, and thought that it might be nice to start a new series of vertical strips. Then I noticed something else- a messy pile of skinny strips of paper on the floor by the paper cutter. These had been trimmed from the sides of larger sheets for some purpose or other, usually a school project of Rebecca’s, and I had been throwing them away for years. Why not put them to use?

The content of these strips is usually nonnarrative and inconsequential, like random drawings copied from pictures in my clippings file (special credit to any readers who can identify all the celebrities in the strip below):

The subjects range from a series of anagrams on the name of former Vice President Spiro Agnew to nude sketches from the YouTube life drawing series Croquis Cafe, to random lines from song lyrics that accidentally rhyme in anapest:

I’ve also begun a related series of Patreon strips on another batch of paper strips I used to throw out- the call slips identifying books or CDs or DVDs put on hold for me at the library. I find this an ideal format for short reviews, in this case of Daniel Clowes’s graphic novel Patience:

One last end strip for the road- in this one, my characters Sandy & Mandy look back at some of those we lost in 2016 (while strictly adhering to the rules of the Bechdel Test):

I’ve embedded links to the individual strips in the text, but to see the rest you’ll need to scroll through all the posts on my Patreon page. Patreon is a reader-supported site, but all comics content is free. If you like what you see, tell your friends, and $how Your $upport!